“Nikolay Trofimitch!” she addressed him, “and what do you think about a consultation?”

“Very good; I’ll arrange it to-morrow.”

From the doctor’s tone it could be easily seen that he put little faith in the benefit of a consultation.  Olga Ivanovna would have asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her.  Again she pressed her face into the window curtain.  At that moment, the strains of a band playing at the club floated in distinctly.  They could hear not only the wind instruments, but even the violins and the flutes.

“If he is in pain, why is he silent?” asked Olga Ivanovna.  “All day long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries.  I know God will take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to prize him.  Such a treasure!”

The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a lively waltz for the opening of the ball.

“Good God, can nothing really be done?” moaned Olga Ivanovna.  “Nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do!  You must understand that I can’t bear the loss of him!  I can’t survive it.”

The doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women, heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room.  There followed a succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with weeping and the questions which lead to nothing.  The band had already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille.  It got quite dark.  In the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say something.  Several times Olga Ivanovna went off to her son, sat by him for half an hour, and came back again into the drawing-room; she was continually breaking into tears and lamentations.  The time dragged agonisingly, and it seemed as though the evening had no end.

At midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased altogether, the doctor got ready to go.

“I will come again to-morrow,” he said, pressing the mother’s cold hand.  “You go to bed.”

After putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into the drawing-room.

“I’ll come to-morrow, Olga,” he repeated in a quivering voice.  “Do you hear?”

She did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her of all power of speech.  In his greatcoat and with his stick still in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in a soft, tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping with his heavy, dignified figure: 

“Olga!  For the sake of your sorrow which I share. . . .  Now, when falsehood is criminal, I beseech you to tell me the truth.  You have always declared that the boy is my son.  Is that the truth?”

Olga Ivanovna was silent.

“You have been the one attachment in my life,” the doctor went on, “and you cannot imagine how deeply my feeling is wounded by falsehood . . . .  Come, I entreat you, Olga, for once in your life, tell me the truth. . . .  At these moments one cannot lie.  Tell me that Misha is not my son.  I am waiting.”